Change your region

My WelleCo

What are you looking for?

Guilt-free chocolate at Easter, yes there is such a thing!

With Easter upon us, indulging in a little chocolate is a given. Dr Simone Laubscher spoke to Instyle about being savvy – yes you really can have your cake and eat it too!

That aisle of Easter candy at your local drugstore can be an especially tricky territory to navigate. Although we wait the entire year for our fair share of Peeps and Mini Eggs, it's easy to go overboard, so consider alternating the sugar rush with a few not-so-terrible options for balance.

"It's not fun to abstain from Easter candy all the time, but you can be savvy and make a good decision rather than going in blindly thinking you don't have a choice," says nutritionist Dr. Simone Laubscher.

"Around Easter, the main kind of candy people will be eating will be chocolate, which has been shown to be really beneficial for us. It's high in antioxidants, is good at hoovering up free radicals, and it's very good for releasing endorphins—raw cacao actually releases similar hormones to the feeling you get when you fall in love."

That explains a lot, actually. According to Dr. Laubscher, opt for dark chocolate when you can. Options that are high in cacao, low in sugar, and leave out ingredients like palm oil, trans fats, butter, or margarine are ideal.

So when choosing your chocolate, consider this:

Opt for dark chocolate, 80 per cent cacao is ideal

Avoid ingredients like palm sugar, trans fats, butter and margarine

The less ingredients the better: opt for chocolate where the first ingredient is cacao or a chocolate derivative, with sugar low on the list

Why you should be eating chocolate for breakfast, according to science

It a nutshell it improves brain function. A little kick-start to your mind in the morning will set you up for a productive day.

In a study conducted by Syracuse University, researchers found that the cognitive scores of participants were substantially higher for people who consume chocolate at least once per week, compared to people who rarely or never consume chocolate. They also found that consumption at the start of the day (hello, chocolate chia pudding) was an optimum time to increase brain function.